Week Five Prompt-My View on Book Reviews

Pull up a chair, the owl is in.

Before posting my Kirkus-style review, here is my response to the prompt on reviews.

 Personally I like reading book reviews (and the ones where the reviewer really slams the books are perhaps the best,as well as the ones that really, really love the book) but I don't really use as a reference point to choose what I read.( In fact, I read them after I read the book.) I pretty much go by the cover or title of the book ( or if it's an author I'm familiar with)read the summary on the back or flap of the book (and sometimes examine the size and amount of pages, chapters, etc), and then decide if I want to check it out or not. If I actually chose what I read based on reviews, I think I would be more of a snotty lit reader and miss out on perhaps a lot of good books. ( Case it point-I looked up What Does the Fox Say?, a book I was planning to use for school visits but couldn't because of the storm, and they clearly slam it( read review here), even saying it's ridiculous to spend seventeen dollars when you could just get the song for free from Youtube. I can sort of understand why they view it as a waste of time and paper because it is one hit wonder, but I kind of like it, and was really looking forward to actually singing the book for the kids. Darn blizzard.)

When I do read reviews, I like Entertainment Weekly, but also (because I'm in children's) BookLinks, Library Sparks, School Library Journal, and The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. I also browse some blogs ( like Abby the Librarian). I checked out Smart Bitches Trashy Books ( love it, especially the What the H..., It's not Even a Book reviews. Loved  that someone chose to focus on the romance level in Iron Man 3 and Thor 2.) Most likely I will be checking out reviews more, but probably more as a guide when shaping my  own reviews.

Since I said I didn't really care whole about reviews, I'm not sure how I would respond to about the questions concerning why certain publishers only publish the good reviews, why one book is praised to death than others, along with the additional questions of the prompt. Personally, one would hope that the good and the bad reviews are published ( obviously places like Amazon and other sites allow bad customer reviews, so it would make sense for review sources to show both sides.) Then again, the aim of the reviews are to encourage the customer to read (or buy) the book, and seeing negative reviews might turn them away.

Reviewing the documents that refer to  the Ebook, I would say both are  somewhat reliable but lack the guidelines mentioned by Erin. I actually favor the Amazon review over the blog review( because at least the customer gave us an idea of what the book is about ( plus the blog .. is owned by the author.Of course she's going to praise it, it's her book.) Would I purchase it for myself ( or ask my library to purchase it?) Me, no ( not really my taste), but if I asked my library to purchase it, they would have to review the reviews themselves and also see if anyone is requesting it.

In reviewing the documents related to Angela's Ashes, I would say the last one, titled " Hard Times, Good Tales" which is featured in Newsweek, really drew my attention. I like that the author says at first glance it sound like a bunch of Irish cliches, but then he gets into the meat of the book, even looking at McCourt's writing style, such as how McCourt gives us his view during his bout with typhoid and how he uses commas and other punctuation marks. The other reviews I would say were decent and informative  ( although I felt the first review from Christian Century was too long, possibly because it compare Angela's Ashes to two other memoirs.  I wanted to really know their opinion about Ashes, not the other memoirs, so I did not finish it.)

Well, that's all I have to say for now. Look for the Kirkus review this weekend, and a lovely horror annotation next week.